COLD ECONOMIES.
A correspondent asks me to explain a little more fully how the various monetary centres can aid each other in economy in the use of gold. One obvious way in which there can be economy in the use of gold is through its virtual abandonment for use as internal currency. Thus, in the case of this country, whereas we had at one time amounts generally estimated at about 1100,000,000 in currency, either in the tills of banks or in the pockets of the People, that gold has now become centralized. Again, there would be a wastage of gold if central banks were to adopt the system of unnecessary hoarding of the metal, and, in a kind of international scramble for gold, bank rates might unnecessarily be raised at many centres to the detriment of all users of loanable capital, whereas co- operation and a knowledge on the part a any centre where there was a real scarcity of the metal that accommodation might be obtained from another country, would do much to
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